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Expert insight
Expert insight

Preventing Abuse: Not Your Fault
Do you ever wonder, “Could God even love me?” Someone sexually abused you as a child. That person told you ...

Preventing Abuse: Jesus Was Abused Too
You were abused. Not just once but many times. You were bruised both physically and emotionally. Words cut holes in ...

Preventing Abuse: Empowering Children
Teaching children about child abuse prevention gives them the knowledge and skills they can use to protect themselves. Because the ...

Preventing Abuse: Too Damaged For Church
You were hurt, you were bruised, and terrible words were said to you. You were told you were a burden ...

Preventing Abuse: Respite Care
Parenting is hard! One of the most challenging jobs in the world, it requires patience, empathy, and the ability to ...

Preventing Abuse: An Overview
They say, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Children need people around them to provide a safe, healthy ...

Step Nine: Educate children about personal safety
No child abuse prevention plan is complete without a plan to reach out to the youth of the church with ...

Step Ten: Review and maintain your child protection program
A program is only effective when it is followed and evaluated. Once you have child abuse response and prevention protocols ...

Step Eight: Create guidelines for responding to abuse
Learning that a child has been abused while in the church’s care is a stressful situation, making good decisions more ...

Step Seven: Support abuse survivors
More than one out of four people have experienced or are currently experiencing abuse, yet over half of all Protestant ...

Step Six: Train adults to recognize and respond to abuse
Training the adults in the church is a vital step to keeping children safe. At a minimum every person who ...

Step Five: Implement Guidelines for Youth Leaders
Boundaries are important and keep people safe. The fence around a power plant is meant to keep people a safe ...

Sample Standards for Interactions with Minors and/or Vulnerable Adults
(Taken from virtusonline.org) Examples of appropriate contact with minors for Church programs include, but are not limited to: Verbal praise ...

Step Four: Assess Your Space
Children need a safe environment in which they can learn God’s Word. Careful facility design is an important step to ...

Sample Site Assessment Checklist
This checklist is not exhaustive. It is meant to be a starting point and should be adapted to meet the ...

Children with Problematic Sexual Behaviors
It is important to recognize the differences when dealing with sexual behavior of young people: “Recognizing and Responding to Developmentally ...

Talking Jesus With A Survivor
Child abuse does not only affect a child’s body and emotional health. It touches their spiritual health, too. A child ...

Working with Law Enforcement: The Investigation and Your Child
At some level we all realize that investigations in real life take longer than they do on television. Yet, parents ...

Working With Law Enforcement: Getting Started
Some abuse is only discovered when a child talks to his or her parent about what happened. Hearing this in ...

Misbeliefs: I’m All Alone
Many survivors of childhood abuse report feelings of being alone in the world, that no one can understand them. These ...

Misbeliefs: It’s My Fault
Survivors of trauma, whether childhood abuse, sexual assault, or domestic abuse, share a belief that the abuse was their fault ...

Coping with Flashbacks
People who have experienced trauma may experience flashbacks in their everyday lives. Flashbacks can be intense and bring back the ...

What Is A Trigger?
Experiencing a sudden onset of the feelings and emotions that you felt during an abusive situation is a common experience ...

What Do I Say To A Sexual Assault Survivor?
Choosing a counselor should not be difficult. Here are a few things to keep in mind when selecting yours ...

Information to Know When Seeking Counseling
Choosing a counselor should not be difficult. Here are a few things to keep in mind when selecting yours ...

Developing Effective Church Policies on Child Maltreatment
Used with permission, this article by Victor Vieth from Jacob’s Hope reviews the ten stages of developing an effective child ...

Ministering to Adult Sex Offenders
Examining ten lessons from Henry Gerecke on how to minister to adult sex offenders ...

What Would Walther Do?
Counselors and theologians failing to understand the dynamics of child sexual abuse cases often apply the concept of law and ...

Pastoral Theology Brief: Matthew 18
A pastor is counseling a couple in his congregation. In the course of the session it’s revealed that the husband ...